Page 10 of Monsters Like Us
I move to the bed, listening to the sounds of this unfamiliar place. The scrape of a chair. The bustle of the ward settling. When the sounds disappear, the stillness returns and with it the awareness that someone—maybe Micah, maybe someone else—has threaded themselves into my night.
Reaching into my pocket, I pull the note out and unfold it again. The words look sharper now, like teeth. For one terrible, stupid second, I allow myself to feel something perverse and small, flattery that he noticed me. Then shame floods in, and I shove the scrap back into my pocket, clamping my jaw shut.
I can’t tell anyone about the note. Ever.
Lying down, I pull the covers over me. My hand returns to my pocket, touching the folded-up square. The paper is proof that I was seen. That someone knows where I sleep.
I close my eyes and try to make myself believe it was a prank, but I can’t.
Tomorrow the ward will hum the same as it did today—trays, voices, and guards—but the look Micah gave me hangs over me like the shadow of a hand.
I try to sleep, but I’m restless. The ceiling stares back at me. Somewhere down the hallway, a patient begins to sing a low, broken hymn. It’s half-song, half-cry. I press my palms to my eyes, trying to block it out.
My mind whirls with the words from the note.
A truth hits me. I want it to be him.
Another truth leaves me breathless. I’m in the middle of something that won’t leave me.
Worse, I’m not sure I want it to.
CHAPTER 8
Micah
My room isstone and silence. It’s supposed to strip you of everything human, which suits a monster like me just fine. I know how to fill it with my own treasures, anyway.
I sit on the bed and open the bottom drawer of the metal desk. The guards think it’s empty—Bruce checks, Marcy checks—but they don’t look closely enough. Beneath the thin liner is a slit, one I carved years ago with a stolen blade. It’s my vault.
Inside are small things—a button. A broken pencil. A piece of elastic. To anyone else, it’s trash. To me, each one is proof of moments I owned, people I bent. Tokens of control.
I slide the hair inside, carefully and reverently. Dark thread coiled against the pale liner. It doesn’t belong with the others. It’s different. This one hums like it’s alive.
My pulse hammers as I close the drawer, my palm pressed against the cool metal. It’s a promise—a beginning.
The beginning of us.
Dinner fades into night,and night bleeds into morning. The schedule here is clockwork, but today I feel jagged and restless. My body is calm, but inside, I pace like a caged wolf.
I bide my time until the corridors fill again. When the shift changes, Bruce takes the floor. The other guards herd bodies to group therapy, to meds, and to the cafeteria.
That’s when I see her.
She walks between two patients, her gray clothes hanging loose, her hair pulled back now. The cinnamon scent still drifts, the smell faint, pulling me closer.
I step into the hallway as she passes, timing it so Bruce is turned, his keys jingling at his belt. Katana stiffens when she senses me.
“Morning, cinnamon,” I murmur.
Her head snaps up, her hazel eyes wide. By now, I’m certain she’s heard that I don’t speak. And while that’s true, for her, I make an exception.
She slows, like her body wants to stop, but her brain tells her to keep moving. That clash makes her even more beautiful.
“Don’t talk to me,” she whispers, her voice shaking.
I smirk. “You read the note.”
Her lips part, just slightly, her pupils flaring with fear and recognition. She doesn’t deny it.
